Visitor Counter

Visitors Since Blog Created in March 2010

Click Below to:

Add Blog to Favorites

Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions.
This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization.
Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

FAIRBANKS — Denali National Park and Preserve's wolf numbers hit a new low this spring with an estimated population of 48 wolves inside the park, according to a Park Service study.

The National Park Service estimates the park wolf population twice each year using radio-collared wolves and an analysis of a handful of un-collared wolves believed to live in and around the park. The study dates back to 1986. This spring's population estimate is the lowest since an estimate of 46 wolves in fall 1986. It's the lowest on record for any spring survey.

Opponents of wolf hunting and trapping have long used the study to advocate for re-establishing a buffer zone to ban wolf hunting and trapping on state land adjacent to the national park. In 2010, Alaska's Board of Game removed a wolf hunting and trapping-free buffer zone in state land adjacent to the park.

Gunner claiming a Wolf that he shot in Alaska

In a status report on the wolf survey last week, the park's Chief Wildlife Biologist Steve Arthur said the decline was likely linked to two non-human factors. Low snowfall made it easier for caribou and moose to flee wolves, he said. The numbers also dropped because of better tracking technology from GPS collars, he said. The tracking technology expanded biologists' understanding of the wolves' home range, which is used to calculate the wolf population estimate. The park population estimate was the lowest spring survey on record but not the lowest count of wolves. Biologists counted 52 wolves during the survey.

Two of the nine wolves who died in 2014 and early 2015 were killed legally by trappers or hunters, according to the survey. That's about the same proportion as other recent years. A total of about nine wolves died. Besides the two killed by humans, two wolves were killed by other wolves, one died from old age, one drowned, one starved and two died from unidentified non-human causes, according to the survey. At least 14 pups born in 2014 survived into the fall.

The Alaska Board of Game has rejected several petitions to re-establish the wolf hunting and trapping buffer zone around Denali National Park, most recently at its meeting last month. The state game boards takes a wildly different approach to wolf hunting regulations than the National Park Service. In addition to allowing hunting and trapping, the state pays Fish and Game employs to shoot some wolves from helicopters as part of its intensive management program. The program's designed to increase moose populations by keeping predator numbers low.

The state doesn't track wolf populations as closely as the park service but estimates the statewide population is between 7,000 and 11,000. Wolves have never been threatened or endangered in Alaska.

The First Wild Wolf Found in King County in a Very Long Time May Have Been Killed on the Interstate

Let's think about this image of a gray wolf and not about what a gray wolf may have looked like on the median of I-90. GEOFFREY KUCHERA/SHUTTERSTOCK

It had a black coat and was female, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Past that, federal forensic scientists are still investigating the identity of a dead animal found between Exit 38 and Exit 42 on I-90 on Tuesday. But officials suspect it was awild gray wolf.

If they're right, and if the animal wasn't a hybrid or a particularly wild-looking dog, the wolf would be the first of its kind found west of the Cascades in more than 70 years. (The last trace of a wolf west of the Cascades points to tracks found in Snohomish County in the 1940s, though the Department of Fish and Wildlife has received reports from people who think they've seen wolves in recent years.)

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is still looking into the cause of death, but "we suspect it was hit by a car," explained Brent Lawrence, public affairs officer at the USFWS. "As with many things that are found along the highway, it's pretty messy."

Conservationists are particularly excited about this potential new wolf development, because they say it shows recovery of an endangered species that had been practically wiped out in Washington by trapping, poisoning, and shooting roughly a century ago. "The fact that this wolf was found less than 50 miles from downtown Seattle is a testament to the fact that we've preserved some wild places that wolves are interested in populating," Shawn Cantrell, Northwest program director at Defenders of Wildlife, said.

But if wolves do start padding around King County, it'll be an adjustment for humans, too. Eastern Washington state legislator Joel Kretz (R-Wauconda), whose district has plenty of experience with wolf packs and sheep, proposed a bill earlier this year that would relocate his local wolves to western Washington. "Most of the support in the state for wolves … comes from areas where there are no wolves," Kretz told the Spokesman Review.

Kretz had a point. "As a biologist it's pretty exciting to have a large carnivore coming back on our landscape after having been gone for a number of years, to complete the suite of animals that were here when this part of the country was settled," said Dave Ware, wolf policy lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. "As the manager, though, it's going to be very challenging to have large carnivores... they tend to be very vocal and evoke quite a bit of fear."

If the wolves act anything like cougars, they'll mark the interface between urban settlements and wilder areas as territorial boundaries, Ware said. Wolves usually shy away from humans, he added, but they do see pet dogs as competitors, and have been known to get aggressive. Once wolf pups reach adolescence, they tend to wander and look for mates. The dispersers, as these wolves are known, could mean more exploring in territory wolves haven't populated more than a century.

Wildlife for ALL

It is very common for those entrusted with protecting wildlife at the state level to forget that wildlife is for all people. History and tradition have made it easy to concentrate on managing animals for the needs of hunters. The non-consumptive community is tolerated at best, marginalized and ignored at worst. Is this the fault of the Agencies alone? Not entirely, there are several ways that we can work together on finding solutions to the imbalance that permeates wildlife management.

We can look for agency practices that DO encourage and serve non-consumptive users, we must affirm those efforts and positively reinforce the actions that show a true understanding of the need to manage wildlife in ways that serve everyone.

We must show up! You will never go to a game agency meeting that has no consumptive users present. We are all constituents and we must be prepared to show up too!

We must realize that change comes slowly, and that lasting change often comes from the changing of perceptions and understanding. A change of culture, not just of regulation.

We must always identify who the actual 'decision-maker' is, and that means knowing where the 'leverage' comes from. The person in front of you may have no control at all over what is happening. Find out who does and direct your efforts to them.

One of the main reasons that agencies are able to be so dismissive of the needs of non-consumers and advocacy organizations is that we rarely vote according to our core environmental beliefs. This often results in state governments, especially in the Rocky Mountain West, being mostly comprised of those with similar consumptive ideals to their state's historic demographic of producers. For the strategic politician these special interest stakeholders can mean the difference between re-election and 'retirement'!

Producers and carnivores CAN co-exist but it is up to the producer to take the steps required to do so. More and more livestock growers are embracing non-lethal deterrents and conflict prevention. We must support and encourage them as they try to find the new balance that is found beyond the use of bullets. They are 21st Century pioneers indeed!

We must be able to identify the actual issues that we are addressing. It can be cathartic to express our dissatisfaction through anger and by personal attacks. This becomes a distraction from what we are actually advocating for-the quality of life for the animals. It really is OK to disagree, in fact it can be the first step to real communication, we just have to remember to do it in a respectful and non-judgmental way. Talk to people the way you would like your favorite friend or relative treated if they were in the same position.

We can try to engage the people whose values we feel most distant from. This can be hard but it helps to know that you are not giving up your beliefs just by listening to someone else's view, and maybe they will then listen to yours. Empathy is not about betraying yourself, it is about allowing yourself to try and see how the other person is experiencing the situation at hand.

We cannot bully people into being compassionate! What we would like to see more than anything is compassion towards non-human animals. Let's try it on each other first! We would like people to realize that killing something just for recreation is simply not OK.

Advocates and watchers can be dismissed as being 'emotional'. If we think about sport hunting of large carnivores (cougars, wolves, bears) logically, we realize that there is no reason to do it. It is not a conflict prevention measure because it does not target 'problem' animals. It is for recreation, and why do we recreate? We recreate for enjoyment-it gives us pleasure. And what are 'enjoyment' and 'pleasure' if not emotions?

Always remember that change IS happening. If we examine societal attitudes towards carnivores even since the 1960's, it really is better, BUT there is movement today to go back to the old way of regarding these creatures as redundant. Several states have had bills introduced in efforts to relegate cougars to 'predator status' which is basically no accountability whatsoever.

Surprisingly much of the pushback to this regression is from professional wildlife managers. Some of them really are stepping up to the plate to fight for some semblance of protection for wild carnivores. Those that do, deserve our support. As do those brave public servants devoted to protecting our Public Lands-these lands must stay in the Public Sector. This is an insidious and very real threat and we must respond to it with unity and firm resolve.

Lastly, funding is 'in the news' these days. Agencies are facing budget shortfalls and it is time for the funding AND the representation to reflect all the different stakeholders. There cannot be one without the other…

A quote by Woodrow Wilson recently came to our attention. It was part of an address to the Senate regarding the 1st World War. The arena of wildlife management is similar to the arena of war in its propensity to end up as highly defined 'sides'. Perhaps the theme of this quote could be well utilized to administer the Public Trust Doctrine that governs our nations wild-lands and wildlife.

'There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace.'

There has been a consumptive monopoly for too long, it is time for community and not rivalry to take center stage in the protection of our most wonderful natural world….

April 28, 2015UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - What's in a name? The age-old question makes an attempt to understand what someone's name means and how it defines them.

Schreyer Honors College student Maya Evanitsky is taking a unique approach to answering that question. Evanitsky, Dr. George Perry and a team of undergraduate students will research and compare the "original Nittany Lion's" DNA sequence in comparison to other ancient and current lion populations in the United States.

The "original Nittany Lion" that inspired the beloved Penn State icon is a brush lion that was killed in 1856 by farmer Samuel E. Brush. Now extinct, the brush [Nittany] represents more than just Penn State's mascot, it is a small piece of Central Pennsylvania's history.

Sequencing the Nittany Lion Genome

Evanitsky and Dr. Perry opened the "original" Nittany Lion's showcase for the first time on April 13, 2015 to begin the first phase of her research, carefully removing a DNA sample from the lion's leg.

"We're hoping to get DNA from that," said Evanitsky. "The ultimate goal is to sequence the DNA and compare that to DNA sequences in genes of populations of current mountain lions. We're hoping to compare how diverse the species has become and how much they've differentiated over time."

The "Original" Nittany Lion's Preservation

She uses the word "hoping" because this lion has gone through two restorations since its original stuffing of tow. The first restoration took place in 1934 followed by the next in 1992, where various substitutions had to be made to preserve the natural look of the lion using resources like deer fur and polyethylene.

Spending nearly 40 years in the basement of the Carnegie Museum, the lion was displayed in various locations including the St. Louis World's Fair, Chicago World's Fair and the William Penn Museum prior to permanently moving to Happy Valley.

These substitutions make it difficult to remove an authentic sample but Evanitsky is confident that hers is authentic.

The Process

Using the Ancient DNA laboratory at University Park, the junior biochemistry and molecular biology major and her team will compare the DNA from her sample with various other ancient lion samples including mountain lions that currently alive in the western US and Florida.

Potential samples and local displays in the region are located at the Lycoming County Historical Society and Taber Museum as well as the Ecology Lab in Science Hall at Albright College.

The development in ancient DNA methods has made 2015 the right year for this research project.

"Our technology and ancient DNA methods have improved so much that our chance of success is a lot higher than it would have been in the past," explains Dr. Perry. "There are important things that we can learn from studying things that we've lost."

By the 1980s and 1990s, increasing knowledge of the extensive movements by pumas, their broad,contiguous distribution, few geographic barriers to gene flow, and relatively minor, if any, phenotypicvariability provided further evidence to doubt the validity of so many subspecies of pumas in NorthAmerica. Culver et al. (2000) examined genetic markers (3 mitochondrial DNA genes and 10 nuclearmicrosatellite DNA loci) and diversity in puma population throughout North and South America. Shecollected tissue samples from 315 pumas throughout North and South America (261 fromcontemporary individuals and 54 from museum specimens, including 6 eastern puma P. c. couguarspecimens). She documented 14 unique maternal types, and only two of these types occurred northof Nicaragua. Phylogenetic trees lumped the genotypes into just 6 groupings – North America,Central America, northern South America, central South America, eastern South America, andsouthern South America South American pumas have higher levels of mitochondrial DNA diversity and microsatellite satellitemarkers. In contrast, North and Central American populations have no mitochondrial DNA variation(except in the Olympic Peninsula) and moderate levels of microsatellite DNA variation. Thesepatterns of genetic diversity formed the basis for Culver’s recommendation to revise the taxonomy tojust six subspecies – five in South America and all North American (north of Nicaraugua) as a singlesubspecies Puma concolor couguar named after the oldest named subspecies by Kerr in 1792 (Culveret al. 2000).

For North America, the accepted taxonomic list of mammals is the Revised Checklist of NorthAmerican Mammals North of Mexico which is published in the Occasional Papers series of theMuseum of Texas Tech University.The most recent list (Baker et al. 2003) is the eighth version butis due for revision. The checklist is at the species level only and lists Puma concolor.On a global basis, Mammal Species of the World (Wilson and Reeder 2005) is widely accepted as theleading global authority on mammalian taxonomy (Haig et al. 2006). This publication lists speciesand subspecies. Mammal taxonomy is revised and published about every 5 years. With eachrevision, proposed changes from the scientific literature are reviewed, and some are accepted whileothers rejected. A checklist committee established by the American Society of Mammalogists Boardof Directors and Association of Systematics Collections oversees this periodic review of worldmammalian taxonomy. In the early 2000s, editors Wilson and Reeder assigned Dr. W. ChrisWozencraft of Bethel University, Indiana, as the sole reviewer of worldwide Order Carnivorataxonomy (including the puma). Citing only Culver et al. (2000) Dr. Wozencraft revised thetaxonomy of the genus Puma in Mammal Species of the World (Wilson and Reeder 2005) to a single North American subspecies based on Culver’s recommendations

Many clubs held contests, applying point systems to each animal on the list and awarding prizes to the winners. “Contest” was in some cases a misnomer: in many cases, it was a year-round process punctuated by periodic awards.

Each conservation commissioner urged the public to partake. In 1927, Llewellyn Legge said of the Black List animals, “It should be the object of every sportsman, when afield, to kill any of the vermin he sees…. Game clubs should organize vermin days and see that their territory is free from enemies of our game birds and our insectivorous birds.”

Surprisingly, the so-called “animal preserves” owned by hunting clubs and wealthy individuals came under attack for effectively providing safe havens for vermin. Game Protector E. T. Townsend said, “There is no shooting on a refuge, and vermin is always smart enough to be the first to recognize this fact.”

Animal lovers reading this will cringe at the kill totals turned in by game protectors, while realizing that the numbers attained by thousands of citizens and hunters were certainly much higher.

By then, officials had begun blanketing the branding plan with newfound sensitivity. Rather than flooding the media with kill totals, the state said results were attained by “protectors who are instructed to humanely destroy such animals when found afield.” No one explained the difference … being shot by a rifle or humanely destroyed by one. Again, great job of branding.

This practice went on in some form for decades. With the body counts coming only from 100 to 150 on-staff game protectors, it’s staggering to contemplate the numbers generated by game clubs and thousands of individual hunters and farmers, all engaging in vermin elimination year-round.

Some animals were fortunate to avoid the Black List. Two main factors were addressed: diet as determined during autopsies, and the value of an animal’s fur. Birds of prey who mainly fed on other harmful birds or on insects were placed on the official White List as beneficial to nature and man.

One problem with that: the average person can hardly discern one hawk from another, yet shooters were simply given a list and told to fire away. They could also shoot ospreys, but it wasn’t required. No one explained how shooters would recognize the five hawks on the protected White List.

Other critters like skunk, mink, and raccoon caused damaged, but the dollar value of that damage was more than offset by the market value of their fur, which kept them off the Black List. They couldn’t be killed as vermin, but were instead preserved for harvest by hunters and trappers.

Things have changed, but with the occasional excitement over snowy owl appearances, it seems hard to believe they were vermin for so long, and had no protection until 1960. As former members of the Black List, they were once sanctioned targets for practice, of less value than clay pigeons.

Today, instead of simply arming the troops and declaring war, we’ve used science to study animal behavior and arrive at different solutions. The result: “nuisance animal” laws, perhaps not a perfect system (after all, what is?), but quite an improvement.

Photo: The official White List (1919)

- See more at: http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/04/20/new-yorks-war-on-animals-conclusion/#sthash.UTJKOnbQ.dpuf

A Century Ago: New York’s War on Animals

Beware! Pictured here are your adversaries – the official enemies of the state. Don’t be distracted by the pretty colors, lovely feathers, or furry critters. These are vermin, and citizens are urged to kill them at every opportunity. The poster, by the way, represents only the top nine targets from a group of notorious killers, presented here alphabetically: bobcat, Cooper’s hawk, crow, English sparrow, goshawk, gray fox, great gray owl, great horned owl, house rat, “hunting” house cat, lynx, porcupine, red fox, red squirrel, sharp-shinned hawk, snowy owl, starling, weasel, and woodchuck. Kingfishers and a number of snakes were later added, and osprey were fair game as well.

While some of the phrases used above – “official enemies … kill them at every opportunity … new job requirement” – might sound like exaggerations, they were, in fact, official conservation policies of New York State a century ago.

It was all part of a Conservation Commission campaign in the early 1900s to eradicate undesirables (their word, not mine) from the food chain. The above-named animals were deemed undesirable in the realms of farming and hunting. They were just doing what comes natural – killing to eat, or gathering food – but those foods included barnyard animals, garden and field crops, and the vaguely defined “sporting” game that hunters treasured, particularly grouse, pheasant, and rabbits. Lest you think eradicate is too strong a word, the actual order in the state pamphlet was, “Destroy the Vermin.”

How successful was the campaign? It depends on how one defines success. As a wildlife management program, it was a failure. But as a branding effort, it was off the charts, even altering the long-accepted definition of a word.

The term vermin once referred to cockroaches, fleas, lice, and other creatures who themselves were associated with the words filthy, dirty, and disgusting. Look up vermin today and you’ll find a second, supplemental description: “birds and mammals that prey on game.” Webster’s Dictionary adds a third meaning: “animals that at a particular time and place compete (as for food) with humans or domestic animals.”

While we don’t see lice as competing with us for food, our state officials once designated kingfishers, ospreys, hawks, and the entire official Black List as the equal of lice. By association, those critters were likewise dirty, filthy, and disgusting, which made it not just OK, but imperative that they be destroyed … and the public bought it. Now that’s branding.

When this program began in the early 1900s, state officials cited “the vital importance of unstinting warfare upon ‘vermin’ if a plentiful supply of game and other useful wild life is to continue.”

In support of that dogma, an official Black List of animals was released. Further, 100 NYS Game Protectors were given official vermin lists and brand-new Winchester rifles, “which they are instructed to carry with them at all times when in the field, and to use for the reduction of vermin whenever opportunity offers. Every protector is required to report to the commission the number and kind of vermin which he kills each month.” It became a contest of sorts: conservation officers literally competed to top each month’s kill list.

It was a start, but 100 officers across the state were hardly capable of killing in numbers that would diminish wildlife populations. Help was needed, so an army-in-waiting was enlisted. In 1919, the reverse side of every hunting license featured the state slogan, “Enlist in the Campaign Against Vermin,” along with these instructions: “Shoot all you can of foxes, cats hunting protected birds, harmful hawks, red squirrels, and other enemies of useful wild life. You will benefit both the game and your own sport.”

In an official booklet, the state also proclaimed, “Every sportsman, every farmer, and everybody else who believes in the conservation of useful birds and animals must enlist in the campaign and do his share. Only by such active cooperation, year in and year out, can a definite check be put upon these harmful creatures, and beneficial results to desirable wild life be effected.”

Did it work? Well, the state had 125 game protectors, but about 25 were assigned to urban areas. The remaining 100 each had to cover an estimated 400 square miles. Those same men were also busy enforcing wildlife laws, taking perps to court, issuing permits, and performing a host of other duties.

Still, time was found to comply with the new orders. In 1921, they bagged nearly 2000 crows, 500 cats, and 400 red squirrels. The crow total was admittedly low. The reason? There was “no way to determine the number that died from eating poisoned corn thrown out for them near rookeries” or other areas where they gathered in numbers. No totals were given for the animals taken by private citizens.

About Lawrence P. Gooley

Lawrence Gooley has authored 19 books and more than 150 articles on the North Country’s past

- See more at: http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/04/13/a-century-ago-new-yorks-war-on-animals/#sthash.9q2gycY7.dpuf- See more at: http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2015/04/13/a-century-ago-new-yorks-war-on-animals/#sthash.9q2gycY7.dpuf

As far as all the recentcoyotesightings go, is there more coyote activity in Manhattan than usual, or is there just a media frenzy going on? The last time we had this many coyotes, spotted by the public, was 2010. This time of year it's possible that we're seeing dispersing individuals trying to find new territory.

And where would they have originated from? I know there's a more established population in the Bronx. Is that where these coyotes are coming from? It's possible, and most probable. If you were to look at the northern part of Manhattan compared to the southern, there's a considerable amount of wooded parkland. So coyotes are maybe following wildlife corridors from the Bronx into Manhattan.

As far as this most recent sighting, there was a coyote seen at West 60th and West End, near Lincoln Center. When a coyote is between green spaces, what is its reaction? How is it feeling when it's surrounded by cars and buildings? This is a good question. Urban coyotes tend to avoid this at all costs. They want to spend their time in wooded areas, away from us. With that said, some urban coyotes may occupy fragmented woodlots, in which case they have to cross more densely developed areas. If this was part of its territory, if this was a different situation, they would probably learn to do that at night, when there was nobody out.

When we're seeing these coyote sightings, especially in Manhattan, it's a coyote unfamiliar with the landscape, probably looking to set up a new territory. If you think about it, up into the 120s, there's a considerable amount of green space that it could hold tight.

Like on the West Side. Correct. But it doesn't take very long to realize that there's nothing further south. We're perhaps seeing a coyote making a mistake. I think that's important for the public to realize—the Bronx, while not as urban as Manhattan, is an exceptionally urban area, and we go months without hearing about anyone seeing coyotes. And they're found all throughout the Bronx.

In a DNAinfo story on this issue, the hypothesis was put out there by your colleague Chris Nagy that coyotes could end up in Brooklyn and Queens, that it would be a natural migration for them. Could you explain more about that idea? Basically, Long Island is the last large landmass in the United States without a breeding population of coyotes. That puts the New York City metropolitan area at the edge of this range expansion. There are going to be parts of Long Island, including some parts of Queens, where there might be suitable coyote habitat, meaning areas where coyotes could exist with minimal interactions with the public.

However, getting there from places like the Bronx, New Jersey, or Connecticut, where we know there are coyote populations, requires going through the urban landscape that is New York City. And individual coyotes, not knowing the greener pastures beyond, may not always make the right moves getting there. Those are the ones we're seeing.

Should people be concerned? Are coyotes particularly aggressive when they're disoriented in this way? No. As you can see from all the videos, they run from all the authorities and the public, in almost all cases. The secret to the coyote's survival is truly, somewhat counter-intuitively, being able to live beside us and avoid us at all costs. We're talking about an animal that's persecuted throughout most of its range. Despite that, it's expanded its range, but they've done so in such a way that they have learned to avoid us.

Can you give me a rough overview of what the Gotham Coyote Project does? We have three main objectives. First and foremost is to understand more about the ecology of coyotes in the New York City area. To that end, we have relied on noninvasive methods such as camera trapping to understand where coyotes can be found, their activity, and where they're breeding. We're moving on to more sophisticated genetic techniques to understand how many there are, and relationships across parks. But also, part of our mission is to educate the public on the wildlife of New York City, principally coyotes, and to provide opportunities for high school youth to engage in authentic research on wildlife.

To backtrack a little bit, can you confirm this estimate of about 15 coyotes permanently settled in the Bronx? Those estimates are loosely based on how many breeding groups we have documented at one time. But in order to come up with more precise estimates—the camera traps that we use have their limitations—we will rely on methods such as testing genetics we get from scat, or poop, to really get at that question of how many coyotes there are.

Is it difficult to differentiate coyotes from photos? Very difficult.

If a coyote is traveling from the Bronx to Manhattan, how would it get there? That's the million dollar question: how do they get around the urban landscape? With camera traps, we only know what's going on in front of the camera. What we can tell you is based on the distribution of our camera traps, and some citizen science data, coyotes may be comfortable using infrastructure like railways. It's a great way for them to connect park-lands while avoiding interaction with the public.

We're talking about, like, Metro-North trackage, in a ditch? That is exactly right. That's, we hypothesize, one of the main ways coyotes get around the landscape. And in fact we have had camera traps that are feet from railways, and we almost always get coyotes on those cameras. And what a great story to tell for New Yorkers. This is how they get around the landscape. By utilizing a corridor that has very, very little humans on it, outside of the ones traveling at 60 miles per hour.

They're good swimmers, so it's not out of the question that they could swim between the northern tip of Manhattan and the Bronx. The East River is quite a barrier. So that's probably why we're not seeing a lot of coyotes in Long Island yet. They have to use either a very large bridge, such as the Hell Gate Bridge, where our Amtrak runs over, or they're swimming the notorious Hell Gate waters.

These coyotes really challenge New Yorkers to look at our landscape from the perspective of the wildlife that we didn't even realize we share with it.

Have there been sightings on Long Island? There have been a few confirmed sightings. One of the first resident coyotes was in 2009, and the coyote is still alive out in Queens. That, it should be noted, gets very little publicity, which is the kind of story we want. It lives in a park in a residential area, and has minimal interaction with people. There was a sighting out in Suffolk County in 2013, and there have been recent sightings as late as the end of last year. But there is no known breeding population on Long Island. [Editor's note: The Queens coyote was first spotted "near" Saint Albans and Rochdale Village, according to a scientific report Weckel co-authored.]

One more thing. If you are on the lookout for coyote poop, where do you most often find it?Coyotes will, most often at night, use trails in parks. That's a great place for us to find it, because it's easier to see. But in New York, it's a bit challenging because we have so many dogs.

Does it resemble dog poop? Not quite. You'll often see the remains of whatever it was eating. That might be a lot of seeds if it's summertime. You might find hair from rabbits, deer fur. All this is an indication that it's coyote. I know it sounds a little gross, but dogs are eating things like Alpo, so there's a very even consistency to their poop.

We have so many dogs, and dogs pooping, that it's a little more difficult to pick out coyotes. When we're talking about perhaps one or two coyotes that are in northern Manhattan, and we're trying to find their poop, that is not easy.

Two Massachusetts Eastern Coyotes at their den site

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Aldo Leopold--3 quotes from his SAN COUNTY ALMANAC

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

''To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

Wildlife Rendezvous

Like so many conscientious hunters and anglers come to realize, good habitat with our full suite of predators and prey make for healthy and productive living............Teddy Roosevelt depicted at a "WILDLIFE RENDEZVOUS"

Recent Posts

Blog Disclaimer

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time…I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of my various thoughts and opinions, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Rick Meril and WWW.COYOTES-WOLVES-COUGARS.COM make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.